Arrived at Paris, the colonel was put in close confinement, in La Force I believe.  His wife, much alarmed, followed his footsteps; but it was several days before she obtained permission to communicate with the prisoner, and then could do so only by signs from the courtyard of the prison while he showed himself, for a few moments, and put his hands through the bars of the window.  However, the rigor of these orders was relaxed for the colonel’s young child three or four years of age, and his father obtained the favor of embracing him.  He came each morning in his mother’s arms, and a turnkey carried him in to the prisoner, before which inconvenient witness the poor little thing played his role with all the skill of a consummate actor.  He would pretend to be lame, and complain of having sand in his shoes which hurt him and the colonel, turning his back on the jailer, and taking the child in his lap to remove the cause of the trouble, would find in his son’s shoe a note from his wife, informing him in a few words of the state of the trial, and what he had to hope or fear for himself.  At length, after many months of captivity, sentence having been pronounced against the conspirators, Colonel Delelee, against whom no charge had been made, was not absolved as he had a right to expect, but was struck off the army list, arbitrarily put under surveillance, and prohibited from coming within forty leagues of Paris.  He was also forbidden to return to Besancon, and it was more than a year after leaving prison before he was permitted to do so.

Young and full of courage, the Colonel saw, from the depths of his retirement, his friends and comrades make their way, and gain upon the battlefield fame, rank, and glory, while he himself was condemned to inaction and obscurity, and to pass his days in following on the map the triumphant march of those armies in which he felt himself worthy to resume his rank.  Innumerable applications were addressed by him and his friends to the head of the Empire, that he might be allowed to go even as a common volunteer, and rejoin his former comrades with his knapsack on his shoulder; but these petitions were refused, the will of the Emperor was inflexible, and to each new application he only replied, “Let him wait.”  The inhabitants of Besancon, who considered Colonel Delelee as their fellow-citizen, interested themselves warmly in the unmerited misfortunes of this brave officer; and when an occasion presented itself of recommending him anew to the clemency, or rather to the justice, of the Emperor, they availed themselves of it.

It was, I believe, on the return from Prussia and Poland that from all parts of France there came deputations charged with congratulating the Emperor upon his several victories.  Colonel Delelee was unanimously elected member of the deputation of Doubs, of which the mayor and prefect of Besancon were also members, and of which the respectable Marshal Moncey was president, and an opportunity was thus at last offered Colonel Delelee of procuring the removal of the long sentence which had weighed him down and kept his sword idle.  He could speak to the Emperor, and complain respectfully, but with dignity, of the disgrace in which he had been so long kept without reason.  He could render thanks, from the bottom of his heart, for the generous affection of his fellow-citizens, whose wishes, he hoped would plead for him with his Majesty.